Fix for 10.4.3 fan problems: unplug and restart and resetting the SMU (PMU?)

[Via macintouch]

Interesting! Seems to work for many who get roaring fans: Turn off, unplug, push power button to drain (capacitor issue?!) then plug and restart.

Macintouch - Mac OS X 10.4.3

10.4.3 Fan Problems: A big thank you to Peter Trondsen for his tip of disconnecting the power cord and pushing the power button. My rip roaring iMac G5 is quite again.

Anything that involves capacitors in the iMac worries me, and the pushing power button to drain sounds like a capacitor to me (I'm no EE though.).

An Apple kb article talks about the same sort of thing -- another bizarre embedded smart device management unit is causing trouble, and has its own exotic reset:

The SMU (System Management Unit) is a microcontroller chip on the logic board that controls all power functions for your computer. If your computer is experiencing any power issue, resetting the SMU may resolve it. The SMU controls several functions, including:

* Telling the computer when to turn on, turn off, sleep, wake, idle, and so on.
* Handling system resets from various commands.
* Controlling the fans.

Note that resetting the SMU does not reset the PRAM. Resetting the SMU will not resolve issues in which your computer is unresponsive—in these situations, restarting your computer will generally suffice. If your computer isn't responding, perform these steps one at a time, in this order, until the issue has been resolved:

1. Force Quit (Option-Command-Escape).
2. Restart (Control-Command-Power).
3. Force Shut Down (press the power button for 10 seconds).

Resetting the SMU can resolve some computer issues such as not starting up, not displaying video, sleep issues, fan noise issues, and so on. If your computer still exhibits these types of issues even after you've restarted the computer, try resetting the SMU. To reset the SMU on an iMac G5 (Ambient Light Sensor) computer, simply do the following:

1. Turn off the computer by choosing Shut Down from the Apple menu, or by holding the power button until the computer turns off.
2. Unplug all cables from the computer, including the power cord.
3. Wait 10 seconds.
4. Plug in the power cord while simultaneously pressing and holding the power button on the back of the computer.
5. Let go of the power button.
6. Press the power button once more to start up your iMac.

Unlike earlier iMac G5 computer models, the iMac G5 (Ambient Light Sensor) and iMac G5 (iSight) computers do not have a button on the main logic board for resetting the SMU. This eliminates the need to remove the computer's back cover to reset the SMU.

Not to be confused with the Power Management Unit! Arggghhh. Apple's embedded OS devices drive me crazy. I wonder if the 10.4.3 update tries to update the SMU logic and that causes the fans to roar. The SMU reset article suggests that owners of 1st generation iMacs won't benefit from the unplug trick -- they'll have to open the iMac and push the internal reset button.

I'm getting similar problems though with 10.4.2 and my iMac; I dropped the CPU to "low" to reduce heat and the system quieted. That happened after a memory update; I wonder if installing the memory somehow confused the SMU, but it's true I'm also running iTunes continuously now. I'll try this and report what happens.

Corruption in blogger database producing lost posts?

This is a bad bug. I created a post in Blogger yesterday that has vanished. It's still on blogspot
but it's not accessible in Blogger. If I click on the edit link that appears (when authenticated) below viewed blogspot files I get this error message:

The post you were looking for was not found.

From the error message I can see the blog and postid for blogger:
blogID=5710205
postID=113090838306544429

The only way I can see this kind of asynchrony is if there's a corruption problem in the blogger database. Not good.

I only discovered this because I had a link to the now lost posting in another blogger post that still exists. I wonder how long this has been going on.

Nano Notes

Emily got a Nano for her birthday. Here are the odd things I noticed that, I'd guess, most wouldn't.

1. When you export all contacts from OS X Address book, a single file is created, not a set of .vcf files. Interestingly the Nano can handle this file. This is the easiest way to dump a bunch of contact data manually into the Nano. I'll experiment with dumping more than one of these. (iTunes mediation of syncing with Address Book is messed up when multiple users share the same music library.)

2. Gordon's Tech: iTunes and iPod integration and oddities mentions sharing a cable with an older iPod and some oddities of iTunes integration. Alas, the kb is wrong. The 3G firewire iPod will not sync using the cable that comes with the Nano.

More to come ...

Remote control for iTunes - Sailing Clicker and more

Still trying to figure out a way to take control of our home media server. I'm currently controlling streaming from my iMac to my stereo using TuneConnect (remote AppleEvent control of iMac) on my iBook and a separate complex kludge involving SlimServer, LAME, iTunes, Airport Express, and mp3 radio streaming (don't ask).

The Kensington remote works with the Airport Express, but it's IR. Doesn't work from the kitchen like the iBook with TuneConnect.

But then there's Sailing Clicker. The Bluetooth won't work (the iMac is out of range) but an 802.11b client that can handle WPA encryption could work. They support the Palm T/X. (Palm TX).

Sailing Clicker is $24 and the T/X is $300. A bit pricy since a Roku would do more and cost less. However both my wife and I have old SONY CLIEs. Either one could suffer a mysterious accident, and be replaced with the T/X ...

Update 11/2: Griffin has the AirClick.
Update 11/7: Griffin has just revised the AirClick. Also, Roku has now documented the 'Roku Control Protocol' which allows one to control a Roku device directly. This overall problem -- managing the relationships between music source, digital rights management, network bandwidth, user location, multi-display, locus of control, device integration, etc etc is really neat from a usability and design perspective. Frustrating (esp. the DRM part) but neat.

Gordon's Tech: iTunes and iPod integration and oddities (the lost posting)

This is a recreation of a post I did on 11/1 that Blogger apparently lost:

Gordon's Tech: iTunes and iPod integration and oddities

Computer vendors have a tough time managing multiple users. Palm blew it completely, they never reconciled their view of the Palm Desktop with the multi-user nature of XP.

Apple has done a bit better, but they're far from perfect. Consider iTunes on one machine that syncs with 3 iPods, two belonging to one user and one belonging to another user. How should the system be setup? Assume the music is shared.

There's no good answer. Ideally the music would belong to a neutral user and each iPod would sync with a shared Library and local playlists. Alas, items from a shared Library cannot be added to local playlists, nor can they be synced to an iPod. If all users share one Library, however, the contact syncing doesn't work.

A basic design problem.

BTW, if one has a Nano and a 3G iPod one runs into an interesting conundrum. The 3G cable will charge both devices but won't sync the Nano, the USB cable will sync both devices but won't charge the 3G. Since I don't want to have too many cables dangling from my iMac, the USB cable will stay there to sync both devices but the firewire cable will go to cradle downstairs to charge devices.

Mac OS X 10.4.3 Update: Beware!

The OS X 10.4.3 Update (Delta) has been released. I believe the 3 people who read this blog know this is a BIG pile of bugfixes. It would be astounding if it didn't cause some people serious trouble.

I have been keenly awaiting this release, but I will chain myself to the mast to avoid installing it until at least a week has passed. This is not a minor update. I'll let my good friend Andrew do some testing first ... (Andy prides himself on installing every Apple OS and product update without hesitation ...)

Note one fix is to completely disable Quartz Extreme:

Disables Quartz 2D Extreme—Quartz 2D Extreme is not a supported feature in Tiger, and re-enabling it may lead to video redraw issues or kernel panics.

Quartz extreme was a major Tiger pre-release feature. I hope this doesn't mean it's been bumped completely out of Tiger! A bitter pill indeed.

LaunchBar 4.1b1 has Search in Spotlight option

I wrote Objective Development a month or two ago requesting Spotlight integration in their Launchbar application (Launchbar alone is sufficient reason to use OS X over XP). They told me the work was underway. I guess I wasn't the only customer to ask!

Now it's out in beta. I'll report on how this goes as soon as I install it. This might make Spotlight really useful for me.

LaunchBar 4

LaunchBar 4.1b1 is a Mac OS X launcher with drop-down menus, shortcut keyboard access to menu items, and launching of bookmarks, email addresses, files, and applications. This beta release adds new options for opening items, support for color labels, improved iTunes support, improved Address Book support, a Search in Spotlight option, a Look Up in Dictionary option, faster startups, and other changes. LaunchBar is $19.95 for non-commercial use ($39 for business use) for Mac OS X 10.2 through 10.4.

Update 11/1: Fabulous. Heavenly. Suddenly Tiger is worth something. The Spotlight syntax now makes sense. I can do phrase searches. I can do Boolean searches. I've removed Spotlight's keyboard shortcut and assigned the Spotlight Windows shortcut to F2. Launchbar again owns the cmd-spacebar key.